Published on: 2026-08-19
Source: United Nations
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August 19, 2026 Healthcare
Most deaths among women occur outside the period of pregnancy and childbirth; however, healthcare systems still primarily focus only on causes related to motherhood. A new analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe has revealed serious gaps in data on women’s health and mortality.
Over the last two decades, maternal mortality in the region covering Europe and Central Asia has generally declined. More than 98 percent of births take place in medical facilities, and approximately 99 percent occur with the involvement of qualified medical personnel. Nevertheless, between 2018 and 2022, more than 3,500 women in the region died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Almost all of these deaths could have been prevented.
At the same time, since 2013, progress in reducing maternal mortality has practically stopped, and in Eastern and Northern Europe the rates have begun to rise.
Violence takes more lives of women than pregnancy and childbirth
At the same time, according to WHO analysis, more women in the European region die from violence than from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. The true scale of the problem may remain underestimated.
Violence against women is often perceived as a problem primarily affecting young girls. However, older women also face violence from intimate partners, psychological abuse, and other forms of violence. The risk of femicide — intentional gender-based killing — persists throughout life.
The divide between East and West remains
The gap in female mortality rates between the eastern and western parts of the region, which has existed for decades, has yet to be overcome. Women in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Western Asia face a significantly higher risk of death than women in Northern, Southern, and Western Europe.
Overall, mortality rates from most major causes are higher among men than among women. However, a more detailed analysis reveals another problem.
In women aged 45 and older, the cause of death is registered significantly more often than in men in insufficiently specific categories, officially classified as “ill-defined causes of death.” These include terms such as senile debility, cardiac arrest, heart failure, unspecified dementia, or simply unknown cause.
According to the WHO, the likelihood that the cause of death of a woman in this age group will be assigned to such a category is approximately 14 percent higher than for a man. As a result, it becomes more difficult to determine what women actually die from.
Why the causes of death of women remain unclear
This difference can partly be explained by the fact that women live longer, and in old age, a person often has several chronic diseases simultaneously, which complicates determining the cause of death.
However, the WHO notes that the problem does not end there. Increasingly, data show that women are diagnosed later, are less often referred for additional examinations, and remain underrepresented in clinical studies – especially when it comes to cardiovascular diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death for both men and women, but in women they often manifest differently and therefore may remain unrecognized. These factors affect not only the treatment of women during their lifetime but also how the causes of their death are subsequently recorded.
Insufficiently accurate data have consequences that go far beyond the quality of statistics. They can conceal the true scale of diseases, reduce the effectiveness of prevention, and distort the priorities of scientific research.
“Women are not only mothers”
As women age, they also face chronic diseases, disability, and dependence on external assistance. Among them are musculoskeletal diseases, dementia, and other neuropsychiatric disorders, which can severely affect quality of life, daily functioning, and the need for care.
However, these problems often receive significantly less attention than reproductive and maternal health, despite the fact that they account for the majority of the years lived by women with diseases and health disorders and, ultimately, many cases of death.
“Women are not only mothers, and healthcare systems must treat them accordingly,” said Dr. Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of Health Systems at the WHO European Regional Office. “We urge the Member States of the European Region to remove barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing medical care, to fill data gaps that obscure the real causes of women’s deaths, and to include violence prevention in national health policies.”
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